


the only heaven

by flyingthesky



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: (aziraphale also submits to it for what it's worth), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Submits to the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known (Good Omens), Extended Metaphors, Footnotes, Hozier References, M/M, Post-Canon, interesting use of my degree in the english language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24505603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingthesky/pseuds/flyingthesky
Summary: For a time, there is too much going on for Aziraphale to really think about what he wants and what's possible in the wake of the revelation that he canhaveanything that he wants. There are things to think about, and things that must be done and then damnable things that keep them apart but then one day there isn't anything at all except the way Crowley is lounging on the couch that moved into Aziraphale's new bookshop where they live since it's more convenient that way. It seems easy, then, to roll his shoulders back and let something loose inside himself.The noise of it, sharp like the crack of a whip, makes Crowley look up from the book he's pretending to read.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23
Collections: remixapod 2020





	the only heaven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CompassRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CompassRose/gifts).
  * Inspired by [[Podfic] smoked lamb by marginaliana](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21244808) by [CompassRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CompassRose/pseuds/CompassRose). 



> there was such atmosphere to the way CompassRose reads that i tried my hardest to capture that. did i succeed? probably not! but it was fun to try. it is also, perhaps, unsettling. you could find it so, but it's not meant to be.
> 
> truly this is just a fic about how when you want the rewards of being loved you must submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.

It oozes.

Aziraphale suspects that Crowley doesn't mean for it to, but the way his demonic form flickers through the facade of his humanity oozes all the same. The leaking edge of Crowley's nature smells the way the southern states of America do when it's summer and people are cooking barbecue: smoky but a bit damp.[1] The smell suits Crowley, as far as Aziraphale is concerned, but he doesn't think humans can smell it. Well, perhaps it's better to say that he doesn't think humans interpret the smell in the same way. Occasionally a more sensitive human will begin to think of Crowley as being dangerous, but Aziraphale suspects that's an upside rather than a downside.

The problem with the fact that Crowley's grasp on humanity is and always has been much more tenuous than Aziraphale's own wouldn't be a problem except for the way it makes Aziraphale _want_. Were he human, he would describe it as a physical wanting, but that sort of thing has never appealed to him. Humans have their human ways of connection, but what Aziraphale wants is something much, _much_ more primal. It's an instinctual want, something born out of feelings that existed before the concept of time when there was nothing but Her and Her Angels. From before there were demons at all, maybe.[2] And oh, Aziraphale believes in Her plans but he _wants_.

For a time, there is too much going on for Aziraphale to really think about what he wants and what's possible in the wake of the revelation that he can _have_ anything that he wants. There are things to think about, and things that must be done and then damnable things that keep them apart but then one day there isn't anything at all except the way Crowley is lounging on the couch that moved into Aziraphale's new bookshop where they live since it's more convenient that way.[3] It seems easy, then, to roll his shoulders back and let something loose inside himself.

The noise of it, sharp like the crack of a whip, makes Crowley look up from the book he's pretending to read.

“Angel?” Crowley's eyes are still hidden behind the glasses he wears, but Aziraphale knows he blinks. “Oh. Is that how it is today?”

Shaking out the expanse of his wings, of the multitude of feathers that he hasn't stretched in a millennia, Aziraphale smiles. He holds out a hand, the way he used to when humans were younger and more trusting, and Crowley doesn't hesitate. There's a sickening crack, like bones breaking or trees snapping in a hurricane, and then they are who they're meant to be. When Crowley takes his hand, it feels like a thing you can't keep a grip on. It feels like trying to hold quicksand or water, the essence of it threatening to slip away at any moment but somehow staying perfectly in the curve of Aziraphale's hand as he pulls Crowley close enough for what he's wanted maybe since he noticed the impossible geometry of sharp edges that existed behind the way Crowley cloaks himself in a human shape.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and the shape of it meets in three perfect points, “may I?”

“Oh, Angel.” Crowley smiles, sharp and unreal in the way Aziraphale has always hoped for. “When have you ever needed to ask?”

While that's technically true—despite what philosophers have been musing on for ages, all of Her creations have free will because Her Ineffable Plan has nothing to do with minute details—it would have been impossibly rude not to ask. They may not be human, but human manners are only the way they are because one of Aziraphale's brothers molded them to be so.[4] Permission is necessary, even if he could have assumed it, but once he has it there's no sense in wasting any time. He steps into Crowley's space, reforming and reworking the shape of their boundaries until there is nothing nothing _nothing_ but them. They blink, eyes belonging to neither of them and both of them at the same time, and _oh_. Everything is brighter, better, _more_ in a way that's both exactly right and far, far too much.

“Brilliant,” they say, the word a perfect, dripping balance of both of them. “Absolutely brilliant.”

The couch is still there, and they rearrange themselves again into a form that can sit on it. Parts of them spill off the edge, the texture of the carpet scraping against their flesh, but the ceiling holds wonders too great to worry about potential carpet burn. Everything is vastness and forever, stretching infinitely into the past and the future, and they don't breathe for several very long minutes while they bask in the holiness of it all. The song that the radio has taken a liking to, which Crowley likes and Aziraphale finds terribly vulgar, feels like the indescribable _essential_ way that togetherness feels.[5] It feels like a deathless death. It feels like the sweetest innocence and the gentlest sin. It feels _right_.

“I love you,” they say, like an echo chamber without an end. “I love you.”

When they finally remember that they are two and not one, carefully pulling apart to keep everything where it's meant to be, it's hard. It's so indescribably hard where blending together was so _so_ easy, but there's a time and place for togetherness and a time and place for being two separate beings who can think different things and be different. Aziraphale breathes again, each one a shuddering thing that feels like he was dying but his lungs don't remember how they're meant to work for a moment. He sits on the couch next to Crowley, folding everything back down into the confines of his own self.

“Angel,” Crowley says. He reaches out, fingers curving around Aziraphale's face, the glasses now gone somewhere so Aziraphale can see the glint of his eyes. “My angel.”

“Yes.” There is no other answer than that, not really. There will never be another answer, not for all of time and even whatever exists after time ceases to. “Yes, dear.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1 Sometimes, if you're in the correct area, there's undertones of sulfur too, which is fitting. Aziraphale has never been overly fond of America, but they do have interesting food if you know where to look. [ return? ]
> 
> 2 You may recall that angels and demons are, fundamentally, the same. Before She punished those who questioned The Ineffable Plan, all demons were once angels. [ return? ]
> 
> 3 On paper, both Crowley and Aziraphale are beholden to Heaven and Hell which should be cause for questions about this very peculiar arrangement. In practice, neither Heaven or Hell wants to deal with them anymore and they've been _blessedly_ left to their own devices. [ return? ]
> 
> 4 It was, if the Dead Sea Scrolls are to be believed, Sealtiel. Realistically, it must be noted that only one of many kinds of Christianity even recognizes Sealtiel as an archangel and honestly the scholars might have mistranslated the Aramaic because, quite frankly, translating several thousand year old texts is a nightmare. [ return? ]
> 
> 5 The radio, although not necessarily a thing that _thinks_ , has a personality which might be described as “mischievous” and a great love for Irish musicians. Crowley gets along with it splendidly. Aziraphale finds it disagreeable, but is too kind and gentle to get rid of it for its sins. [ return? ]


End file.
